


you're wearing thin

by yuusaku



Series: smile world [4]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Post-Canon, Self-Hatred, Sharing a Body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 07:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10485372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuusaku/pseuds/yuusaku
Summary: And, abruptly, he's free of the choking coils of that body, and instead in the depths of a mind that's his-but-not-his. He feels raw around the edges, tattered and torn and drained, and the child he'd been trapped within has started to cry and he can feel them reeling, too, confused and discomforted and starting to search for the cause on auto-pilot.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't want Zarc to spend forever stuck in a baby okay.
> 
> Yuuya spends basically the entire fic being referred to in the narrative as an it because of Zarc POV, by the way, as a heads-up if that bothers anyone. Also, Yuuri/Yuuya and Yuugo/Rin are both referenced as canon-to-this-verse things (though not enough that I'd want to tag either).

He drifts, at first, chained and half-aware. There's nothing he can connect to in this space, not alone but close enough for it to not matter.

There are little sparks of feeling, ones that make him strain toward full awareness and control, but this body is no part of him and the mind that belongs to it isn't developed enough, as things are now, to do more than instinctively press him back into the corners of this place.

(he doesn't cry; he's just a shadow of a shade of a demon, and remembering how is beyond him)

* * *

He knows, when they hold this body for the first time. The sparks of feeling from before are overwhelming, this time, and he reaches for the sensation and _grabs_ , desperate. He doesn't expect it to work, not really, but the longer he spends trapped in the depths of this all-wrong, too-young mind, the more he's certain he'll lose whatever shreds of sanity he can still lay claim to.

So he grabs at the lifeline feeling of their presence, grabs and strains and _hopes_ in whatever part of this existence might have been a heart once.

And, abruptly, he's free of the choking coils of that body, and instead in the depths of a mind that's his-but-not-his. He feels raw around the edges, tattered and torn and drained, and the child he'd been trapped within has started to cry and he can feel them reeling, too, confused and discomforted and starting to search for the cause on auto-pilot.

He's afraid, he realises, of being caught. There are four of them and he feels shredded and fractured, not whole, and he doesn't know how long he's been trapped in the child so he doesn't know _them_ right now, doesn't know what they'll do if they find him here.

(so he hides, deeper than any of them are likely to look, and trembles in the darkness and _waits_ )

* * *

He watches them, when it feels safe enough to do so. Stays at the very edges of their possible awareness and watches the way that they interact with each other, with the people around them. With the equivalent parts of _her_ , in particular, the way that most of them are friendly with not just their own equivalent but the equivalents of the others, too.

Friendly, he can deal with, wary and hidden like he is.

The Synchro pair, though, are more than friendly, and his aspect of them leaks feelings near-constantly when the pair are near each other. Flashes of color and emotion and images of the pair of them and it's enough to make him recoil to the depths again, shuddering down to his core.

(the fact his aspect has something he never experienced with an aspect of _her_ makes him sick down to the depths of himself, disgusted and revolted and—)

(wanting, maybe)

* * *

The Standard (Pendulum?) aspect is the first to notice him. Something about him resonating with that aspect in particular, perhaps, that makes it harder for him to hide himself.

Whatever it is, that aspect finds him in the depths of their mind and follows him when he tries to dive deeper, projecting things after him that he brushes aside in his haste to flee. In the end he finds he has nowhere to go, though, and whirls himself around in the depths to face the aspect, torn between the cornered animal urge to fight and the desire to not hurt this him-but-not-him thing.

 _I don't want to hurt you!_ the aspect projects at him when he stops, the accompanying feelings telling him that it's been trying to send him that for a while, now.

He watches it, wary. Doesn't know whether to respond or even that he knows _how_ , because even if he feels more whole in this place than he did trapped in the child's mind, it doesn't change the fact that he's _broken_ in some way. That _she_ shattered him and almost as soon as he'd managed to rebuild he'd been pulled apart again.

That even when he'd rebuilt himself it had been _wrong_ , the aspects all grown apart and having filled in the blanks in themselves so that there was _too much_ of him, too much material and too many memories and too many feelings and—

The aspect is trying to move closer again, and the movement draws his attention and makes him bristle and shudder, an odd rippling sensation throughout his core that feels, if anything, like the reaction of a cat having its fur stroked the wrong direction. That stops it moving forward, leaves it just staring at him with worry written across its face and pouring off it.

He wonders, watching it, what he looks like in this place. The four of them look as their separate bodies had looked, no matter what they do with the shared vessel, but they're whole where he isn't. He could be a shade or a silhouette or some kind of monster to the aspect's eyes, for all he knows.

 _Zarc?_ it projects eventually, _Are you Zarc?_

Something in him solidifies at the name, some part of him he's not been able to grasp before, and he grabs at it greedily, clutching at this thing that he'd somehow lost - that he has a _name_ , that he's some _one_ and not some _thing_. He still doesn't answer, though, doesn't know how to or whether he wants to or whether it would be safe to do so.

He's silent for seconds or minutes or hours before the aspect sighs and tells him, _I have to go. But I won't tell the others yet, and I'll come back. Okay?_

The non-response that it gets is obviously enough for the aspect, because after a moment or so it nods and then disappears, heading for the front of their mind.

(he just stays there in the depths, clutching the knowledge of his name safe in his core)

* * *

The Standard aspect - Yuuya, its name is Yuuya - comes to him semi-regularly after that, particularly when he comes nearer to the front of their mind. It sits itself with him while he watches the others, and sends him things he wouldn't have picked up on his own; names and relationships and little bits of daily life that maybe once upon a time he'd known or even experienced for himself, that he's lost now to the scraps of himself that have been torn away.

More than anything, it ends up telling him about _her_ aspects. Ignores the way he hisses and shudders at the sendings and just pushes on through, telling him all about Yuzu and Serena and Ruri and Rin. The way it leaks happiness talking about its own equivalent makes him suspicious until it catches the look on his face and tells him that _no_ , it's with _Yuuri_ , not Yuzu.

It takes him a moment to attach the name to the Fusion aspect - names are easier now that he has his own, but still sometimes hard to grasp - and when he manages it he recoils abruptly and flees into the depths again, ignoring Yuuya's calls after him. Because it's worse than the knowledge of the Synchro pair, makes him sicker to the core to know that two of his aspects are entwined like that than to know that one of them is entwined with an aspects of _hers_.

(if they're supposed to be him, how do any of them manage not to be sickened by each other, let alone that?)

* * *

He doesn't know how long it is before he lets Yuuya near him again. He flees it whenever it comes near and it apparently takes the cue, because it doesn't ever close the gap between them.

When he finally does let it near, Yuuya drifts closer hesitantly, sitting before it gets too close and watching him as he paces back and forth in the depths.

 _I don't understand,_ he projects eventually, surprising himself with the ability as much as he seems to have surprised Yuuya. _I don't understand how you can stand each other that much._

That makes Yuuya draw in a sharp breath - all for show, its breathing and his pacing all a _performance_ down here in the depths - and then let it out in a sigh, projected sadness wafting off of it.

 _Yeah,_ it says eventually, _I guess that's not surprising._

(the sadness in its tone pricks at him like thorns, but he stays there and lets the feeling wash over him; the discomfort is something he can understand, at least)


End file.
